Orange Grove County
by superheroninjadinosaurs
Summary: Axel's small Family moves from the city to the country side, looking for a new beginning, and what he finds is a blonde with an affinity for flannel and the woods.


Netflix is really the enemy at this point, but here you go. (this is not based off of any movie, but it makes me come up with ideas like this)

a few minutes of Google led me to a southern tradition of painting the porch ceiling "haint Blue" to keep spirits away, and (not a southern tradition) hanging sage above the doorway for basically the same reason.

warning: whoops. none, you get none... maybe you'll cry maybe you won't I don't really know

disclaimer: Not my characters, and the place is made up. at least I don't think there is a place called Orange Grove County

* * *

"It's beautiful. Axel, honey, look," his mother sighed, soft brown locks tangled into a braid at the back of her head, one petite hand over her pregnant belly, and the other pointing out of the window, a light summer breeze tousling her bangs. Axel smiled at his mother, taking his eyes and mind away from parking the truck in the dirt driveway.

A small chuckle escaped his lips, "mom, it looks the same as the last three times you showed it to me."

His mother sighed again, lolling her head back to face her son, "I know, but it's just so beautiful. I've never seen another house like It." she rubbed her hand over her belly and smiled again, laugh lines forming and her eyes crinkling at the corners, dimple on her left cheek, "she's going to love it here. We can put a swing out on the porch and everything."

The house was a soft yellow, pale shudders and those lacy curtains his mom said would let in the most beautiful morning light. The porch was white painted wood, warped in some places, a rocking chair left from one of their previous visits, and lined with dead bushes that she fantasized Axel would replace with something beautiful like sunflowers or lilies. "Yeah, mom, whatever you say. First I have to unpack, and you should go lay down." his short red eyebrows raised, signaling for her to get out of the truck and hurry up the steps to their new home.

She unbuckled, day dream smile still on her face, and got out of the car. Axel followed, Red hair pulled into a pony tail, and arms full of sagging boxes.

* * *

He thought he heard the sound of chairs scrapping unpolished wood in the dining room from his twin sized bed. His mother was sound asleep in her room down the hall, and Axel would be damned if someone came in to hurt her on their first week.

Axel crept down the old stairs, ankle socks and cotton boxers blowing in the draft caused by the upstairs window that couldn't close all the way. The scrapping continued, and he gulped, wishing he could have at least had the foresight to put on a pair of sweat pants.

Once he was downstairs the scrapping stopped, and his mothers vases and fine china being messed with and misplaced sent a chill up his spine. The redhead could make out the faint edges of objects blurring into the black.

Axel's heart raced the second he flicked on the lights in the dining room. He squinted and stared all around the space, but saw nothing. All the chairs in the right place and all the vases and china all tucked away behind glass. Axel sighed in relief, dropping the baseball bat and wiping his hands down his face, "damn these old houses."

* * *

"It's hot as balls, mom!" Axel groaned, pulling up weeds and dying foliage from around the porch. Cicada buzzed and birds warbled in the forest nearby, the sun was hot against his bare back and for once there wasn't the light summer breeze he had became accustomed to.

"Axel! You know how I feel about that language!" his mother was seated in the rocking chair humming to her unborn baby and wiggling her toes.

Axel tossed his head back, and fell into the grass, dirt and dry leaves flying with him, "sorry," he grinned sheepishly, pale cheeks turned bright red from being out in the sun too long. "I guess I'll have to learn French."

She stood, round belly hiding her toes from her when she struggled to stand, "oh, always a smart mouth on you. To think I was going to bring you water because you were working so hard for me." The smile on her face forced Axel to grin wider.

"moooom!"

"Relax; your sister makes me take three times as long to do anything. I'll be back out with something to drink for the both of us." With that she turned inside, the screen door creaking behind her, leaving Axel to pulling up weeds.

he tugged up a few more, not knowing if at one point in time they were actually bushes or not, but he figured they must have been, when a pair of shoes caught his eye. He stood to see the most beautiful pair of crystal blue eyes watching him from not even two feet away. He blinked for a moment taking in the rest of the person.

soft shoulders and a cocked golden head of lopsided, bed mused spikes, baggy jeans, and a red flannel rolled up to his elbows. His shoes quivered in the grass for a moment before he spoke, and when he did Axel couldn't stop thinking about the way it made his head buzz, "Hey, I'm Roxas." And he held out a hand that was probably only a fraction bigger than Axel's mom's own hand. Axel gaped for a moment, tugging off his gloves and extending a sweaty hand to the blonde.

"Axel." he returned.

Roxas nodded, smiled a little and then said, "You're the new family living here?"

"Yeah." Axel grinned, squinting in the bright afternoon light. Roxas gave a little pixie laugh for no reason, one where he shook his head at the ground and scrunched his nose and hid his face under his bangs before brushing them away with the back of his hand.

* * *

The smell of waffles had Axel sniffing the air in his sleep, bright green eyes flickering open, and thinking he could get used to how smells drifted through their new country home. He rolled out of bed and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes on his way down to the kitchen.

his mother was in a loose dress that touched the floor as she turned over another waffle onto the stack in front of her son, "Good morning, sweetie." she leant over and pressed a kiss to his crown, before returning to cooking.

"Mornin'." Axel grumbled, filling his plate.

"The cable company said that since no one's lived up here so long that it's going to be a few weeks before we have Television." Axel nodded, even though she couldn't see it.

* * *

The blonde showed up after noon a few days later, when Axel had his hand buried in soil and trying to read a dusty book about gardening, enjoying the breeze. "Hey." he called, hands buried in his jean's pockets, and kicking at a dandelion.

"Hey," Axel looked up, a grin on his face as he used the back of his glove to wipe away sweat that had collected on his brow. "What's up?"

Roxas bit his lip for a moment, breaking eye contact with the redhead, "uhm... you're new here, I wanted to know if you would be up for exploring with me? Get the feel for the land." Axel's grin faltered, glancing back at the dark new top soil and baby worms already making their home in the dirt.

"Sure, why the hell not. I'm not having any luck planting these damn sunflowers." He stood, chucked the dirty gloves on the porch and cracked his back. "So where to?"

"This way." was all he said, walking past the redhead. He and Axel walked in silence for the few moments it took to reach the woods bordering Axel's plot of land. Roxas angled himself around the sharp branches and rustled through waxy green leaves, and stepped over thickets of brush.

Axel wasn't too nimble when it came to ducking under tree branches Roxas couldn't even be concerned about ducking from. "Hey," he let out with a chuckle, wondering what he'd gotten himself into when he decided it was okay to follow a stranger into the woods. "Where are we going?"

Roxas had paused to look down at a rock before looking back over his shoulder, as if shocked Axel had followed him all this way. "You'll see when we get there." and his smile, the little quirk of pale pink lips and shimmering pools of blue, the pulling of thick flannel up past scrapped elbows and golden skin made Axel quiet and follow the small boy.

* * *

Axel had never seen anything like it. Axel had never been granted such a beautiful moment in time allotted to just watching, tucked quietly behind a bush, with Roxas's small hand clapped over his mouth to hush him, the way the Does and their Fawns nudged each other and made soft sounds.

Never had Axel had his hair nibbled on by a Doe and watched them run away in terror when Roxas let out a shriek of laughter.

* * *

Axel examined the bucket of pale blue paint for a minute, quirking an eyebrow at his mother who was currently on her tip toes on a small wooden stool, tucking a bundle of leaves above the front door. "Mom? What are you doing?"

She sighed, "Sage keeps spirits and bad energy from entering the house," she said and stepped down, wobbling once on the ground again.

Axel gave a skeptic nod, "uh huh, and the reason I'm painting just the ceiling of the porch blue is...?"

"A nice woman down at the market said it's used to keep spirits away down here. She said there was a lot of history here, a lot of unfortunate things that happened in the woods. I'm not taking any chances with this baby." Axel didn't say much else about that, and as it turned out, blue really was a nice color against the country white, pale yellow, and lace curtains.

* * *

Roxas fiddled with the green grass in the clearing, shoes forgotten by his feet and pants rolled up to his ankles, Flannel unbuttoned over a simple black shirt, wayward yellow smiley face adorning the front. Axel lay beside him, hair in a ponytail and long thin limbs folded under him. His shorts were stiff and probably too thick to be out in the woods for so long, and his tank top was loose and exposing his stomach to the light breeze and sharp angles of the sunlight through the leaves, his cheeks were pink from sun exposure and smarted when he laughed. Roxas was laughing at a joke Axel was telling and he hadn't even finished, but he'd do anything to see that boy laugh.

"god, it's been such a long time since anyone ever made me laugh." Roxas said in that voice that Axel swore he could made glass out of, the kind used to color his eyes that blue.

"You must live such a sad existence," Axel shook his head and chuckled. Roxas just hummed, and closed his eyes.

"Do you ever feel like you don't belong?" soft and slow and just a little quiver on the last syllable.

Axel thought about this for a moment, "Yeah I guess. That's kind of why me and my mom moved out here."

Roxas gave a small smile, gone before Axel could even open his eyes to catch it. "And then after you feel like you don't belong, you find that place, and you just feel connected to it? And all you can think is 'damn, this is it. This is where I belong.' I feel like that here. I don't mean like- I mean here in this little patch of grass by this big oak tree. Something just keeps drawing me back to it. Like a little piece of myself is somehow here."

Axel was fully attentive by now, watching how Roxas's mouth curved around each word, how his tongue touched against his perfect teeth and how his eyelids didn't even flicker when he spoke. Then they were open and staring back up at him, huge sea glass blue eyes and ruffled honey blonde. Axel licked his lips before he spoke, "you're one strange kid."

* * *

"You're such a wimp; you can't even climb a tree, what kind of man are you?" Roxas was teasing Axel from his spot in his oak tree. Axel groaned and flipped him off, sticking his tongue out with the gesture.

"You're just a fucking squirrel, okay, the last time I was in a tree I think I was like ten." he pushed himself up on the branch and heaved a breath, squirming to sit beside the blonde.

Roxas reached into his bag and pulled out a set of popsicles, "excuses." he laughed that little pixie laugh, the one with bangs and all that, and handed Axel the one he thought tasted like cherry because it reminded him of his hair.

"So what are we doing up in a tree today?" Axel asked, taking a bite from the frozen treat.

Roxas hummed around lime and lapped up the melting sugar from the palm of his hand, "my cousin sent me this postcard one time. It said something about having the world's best sunsets. I brought you here to call bullshit on that one."

Axel chuckled, "Okay, so we're just going to sit up here with spiders and bark up my ass until sunset?" Roxas just nodded.

When the sunset finally came Axel couldn't help but stare in awe. It was sherbet and hot pink and citrus orange, lavender whispy clouds, and cherry red near the edges. Now, he'd never seen this postcard of Roxas's cousin's. And he didn't know what place could have better sunsets than this, but he thought about how he wouldn't want to see any other sunset than the kind reflecting in glassy blue eyes.

Roxas's voice was slightly higher pitched when he asked, "Axel, do you like me?"

The redhead blinked, "yeah of course, Roxas. Hell, you're the only one I've even spoken too all summer."

A sad smile, "no I mean-" he stopped, collected himself, leaned over to Axel and pressed his lips to the older teen's. And before he could decide if the Popsicle he gave Axel was actually cherry or not, he pulled away, ready to leap and not look back.

"I guess that means you like me too?" Axel pulled him back to him by the honey blonde spikes and connected their lips again. Soft and warm, and he smiled. When they broke apart Roxas bit his lip and looked to the ground, nodding to himself.

* * *

Roxas was in the process of yanking off that red flannel, the one too big for him, and the one he had to keep pushing up past his elbows, when he tossed a look over his shoulder at Axel. He paused, hands at the frayed hem, "what? Don't tell me you've never seen another guy naked before?" he rolled his eyes, "and I'm deprived."

Axel shook his head with a laugh, opening his mouth to say something but deciding last minute not to speak, and instead shook of his shorts, and pulled off his own shirt. "This lake is safe to swim in right?" Roxas was already pulling him in and yelping at the chilly water.

They splashed each other and laughed until their sides hurt and then Axel was bold and kissed Roxas, and Roxas was bold too, wrapping tanned legs around Axel's boney hips, the redhead securing him by the back of his thighs, keeping him close to the skin of his stomach, and tasting his mouth with his tongue. And with Roxas that close to him, even in the chilly lake water Axel could feel everything.

* * *

Axel's hair was a mess, and so was his mother's, but she was glowing even with the bags under her eyes; Axel just looked dead. "Mom," he whispered near the door.

She turned back to look at him, arms carefully holding onto the beautiful sleeping baby in them, the tired smile on her face stretched wider, "yes, sweetie?"

"Nothing." he said, soft like the creeping dawn and dewy grass. He pressed a kiss to his mother's forehead, and then his baby sisters, who squirmed in her sleep. He held the door open for them and a little while after to watch her form sing to the baby all the way up the stairs.

"Axel!" the sweet sound of Roxas's voice made Axel turn, grin on his exhausted face, only to be wiped clean when he saw those glass blue eyes crack.

"Whoa, Roxas, what's wrong?" he was by the forest edge in a second, cupping the blonde's round cheeks.

He shook his head, trembling hands wrapped around thin wrists, staring into coke bottle green eyes in search of something, and the look killed Axel. "You haven't been home for a week. But all your stuff is still there. I thought you- you don't hate me do you?"

The redhead pressed his lips to Roxas's, "No, I don't hate you." he kissed him again and laughed, "My baby sister was born a few days ago, I was with my mom." he let go of his face and in turn Roxas tugged him into the forest, Axel only briefly protesting.

* * *

Roxas thought Axel was the most beautiful creature when he slept. They were under Roxas's tree as the sun was rising, drying the dew and tickling the blonde's nose. His ear was pressed to Axel's chest listening to its steady thrumming and his even breaths. He watched his dark eye lashes fluttered against his sun burnt cheeks, the way his long fingers pressed into the blonde's sides, keeping him close. Oh god, he was beautiful in dawn.

* * *

"Okay, okay, I've been collecting these for some time now, and I think tonight is perfect for this." Roxas was buzzing with excitement, backpack full of something that clanked around when he moved. His hand was tangled in Axel's as he led him to their familiar spot.

"Roxas what the hell are we doing here? How am I supposed to find my way home in the dark?"

"Don't be such a wimp. I know these woods like the back of my hand; I think I can help you make it back in one piece." Axel huffed, falling to the grass alongside Roxas. The blonde smiled from ear to ear, pulled up the sleeves of his flannel and unzipped his bag. He pulled out four huge dusty mason jars full of little lightning bugs.

"Whoa, Roxas when did you have time for this?"

The blonde sat them in a line, giving a small shake to each jar, waking up the inhabitants. "When you were off becoming an older brother." He then grabbed one and held it in his hands, "well, come on now, grab one. They look the best when you let them go all at once."

"Whatever you say." the redhead took one, the little lightning bugs chirping and buzzing around into each other.

"Okay, now." and quickly he unscrewed the cap, and then the next one, alongside Roxas and watched the little bugs escape into the black night. The little bugs flurried into the sky, swirling around like stars in a makeshift galaxy, and Axel listened to their wings fluttering in the dark and was mesmerized by the way Roxas tucked his arms around his knees and head inclined towards the sky, eyes gemstone blue, smile a crescent moon.

It wasn't until they were both so still that a few lightning bugs tucked themselves in the folds of Roxas's clothes did Axel kiss him. The kind of kisses that made Roxas dizzy, the kind that made Axel unbutton the sagging fraying red flannel and feel his way over the blonde's tanned skin, the kind that made Roxas wrap his legs around Axel once he was pulled into his lap, the kind that made Roxas tangle his hands into soft red spikes, the kind that led to kisses along their jaws and neck and chests, the kind that left them breathless.

Roxas was soft slopes and valleys and hills, two huge pools of ocean drops, and smooth curves. Axel was rough edges, tumbling ridges and steep cliffs, ever green forests, and sharp angles. And that explain why they molded together in more kisses that were neither rough nor soft, sharp nor smooth, clung together in a way thought impossible, groaned and keened hot and close to each other's ears, and laughed like glass and tin when it was all over and they were breathless and naked.

The blonde slung one arm over Axel's stomach and smiled into the dips of his ribs. "That was perfect." his voice sounded like sand on tropical islands, and Axel was tempted to keep it in the same jar they used to capture fireflies.

"Yeah," was all Axel could manage to say, staring down at the honey blonde of Roxas's hair, and running his fingers over his golden skin.

* * *

His mother was out on the porch rocking the small baby. She smoothed down her daughters fine hair and hummed quietly to her. "Axel," her voice was sugary sweet, "school starts soon."

"Yeah, mom, I know." Axel answered.

* * *

"T-tell ah- me you love m- me." Roxas panted, one hand curled in the blanket on the grass in the clearing the other entwined with Axel's. His eyes were blurry and his body was sweaty, and Axel was so close. So, so close.

He bent forward, muscles contracting with every movement, breath hitching in his throat, "I love you, R-Roxas."

"The truth, tell me the truth, Axel." he panted out, back arching up.

Axel squeezed his hand, moaning his name into his ear, "it it's still an I love you." and they could both feel that he meant it.

* * *

"I've been seeing you for almost three months now, and you've never even been in my house." Axel observed one day, butterfly resting on his fingers and Roxas admiring the starting of sunflowers by the porch.

The butterfly fluttered away and he smiled at the blonde, when Roxas spoke, "yeah I'd love to see where it is you sleep."

"My mom's out with Kai, we can go see now." Axel winked and took Roxas by the hand to lead him into the house, but the blonde stopped dead in his tracks, gulping when he looked up.

"Axel, I don't think I can go in th- there." he paled and backed away, "I'm sorry, I just remembered I have something to do." He snatched his hand away, trembling, "I'll see you tomorrow." and he was gone. All Axel could do was stare after him.

* * *

Fumbling around in the woods was something Axel was used to, but not by himself. He'd scraped his favorite jeans, and he now had a grass stain on his shirt, "Roxas!" he called, but again, no one answered him. It had been this way for almost a week, and nothing. Like he was never there.

* * *

A stout bald man was bent over the small television set, fiddling with some wires, both Axel and his mother in the living room watching the cable guy at work. He grumbled at the static and when all else failed, smacked the side. The static cleared and gave way to the evening news.

* * *

_"Body of a teenage boy discovered in the Orange Grove County woods, last Friday evening, by local police doing a routine search of the Area." _

Axel caved to the ground; sobs wracked his body as he screamed.

_"Upon discovery Authorities thought it was a recent murder, but DNA test shows it was that of a sixteen-year-old boy who had gone missing in 1994,"_

It was a raw scream, one that tore open the back of his throat.

_ "The family of the deceased has requested we keep his name from the public, but his picture may be released."_

It was a sound that made him sick to his stomach, the very thought of it all made him dry heave onto the grass.

And a bit later on, when the leaves were gone, it was silent...

It was a slow tangle of lithe, pale finger tips around coarse rope and bare branches that bowed slightly with every tug. It was worn thin soled boots with the smeared smile sharpied on the toes that crunched the browning leaves when he stood. It was a slow and lazy yawn in the twilight soft glowing sun. It was the creaking and scuffing of the boots against an old wooden stool and a sniffle against the cold air. Then it was a kick, a clipped intake of breath, and a small snap.

_Baggy flannel, crescent moon smile, honey blonde hair, and Sea glass blue eyes._


End file.
